Closest Type Ia supernova in decades solves a cosmic mystery

Dec 14, 2011

The Palomar Transient Factory caught SN 2011fe in the Pinwheel Galaxy in the vicinity of the Big Dipper on Aug. 24, 2011. Found just hours after it exploded and only 21 million light years away, the discovery triggered the closest-ever look at a young Type Ia supernova. Credit: Image by B. J. Fulton, Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network

Type Ia supernovae (SN Ia's) are the extraordinarily bright and remarkably similar "standard candles" astronomers use to measure cosmic growth, a technique that in 1998 led to the discovery of dark energy  and 13 years later to a Nobel Prize, "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe." The light from thousands of SN Ia's has been studied, but until now their physics  how they detonate and what the star systems that produce them actually look like before they explode  has been educated guesswork.

Peter Nugent of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) heads the Computational Cosmology Center in the Lab's Computational Research Division and also leads the Lab's collaboration in the multi-institutional Palomar Transient Factory (PTF). On August 24 of this year, searching data as it poured into DOE's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) from an automated telescope on Mount Palomar in California, Nugent spotted a remarkable object. It was shortly confirmed as a Type Ia supernova in the Pinwheel Galaxy, some 21 million light-years distant. That's unusually close by cosmic standards, and the nearest SN Ia since 1986; it was subsequently given the official name SN 2011fe.

Nugent says, "We caught the supernova just 11 hours after it exploded, so soon that we were later able to calculate the actual moment of the explosion to within 20 minutes. Our early observations confirmed some assumptions about the physics of Type Ia supernovae, and we ruled out a number of possible models. But with this close-up look, we also found things nobody had dreamed of."

"When we saw SN2011fe, I fell off my chair," says PTF team member Mansi Kasliwal of the Carnegie Institution for Science and the California Institute of Technology. "Its brightness was too faint to be a supernova and too bright to be nova. Only follow-up observations in the next few hours revealed that this was actually an exceptionally young Type Ia supernova."

Because they could closely study the supernova during its first few days, the team was able to gather the first direct evidence for what at least one SN Ia looked like before it exploded, and what happened next. Their results are reported in the 15 December, 2011, issue of the journal Nature.

Confirming a carbon-oxygen white dwarf

Scientists long ago developed models of Type Ia supernovae based on their evolving brightness and spectra. The models assume the progenitor is a binary system  about half of all stars are in binary systems  in which a very dense, very small white-dwarf star made of carbon and oxygen orbits a companion, from which it sweeps up additional matter. There's a specific limit to how massive the white dwarf can grow, equal to about 1.4 times the mass of our sun, before it can no longer support itself against gravitational collapse.

"As it approaches the limit, conditions are met in the center so that the white dwarf detonates in a colossal thermonuclear explosion, which converts the carbon and oxygen to heavier elements including nickel," says Nugent. "A shock wave rips through it and ejects the material in a bright expanding photosphere. Much of the brightness comes from the heat of the radioactive nickel as it decays to cobalt. Light also comes from ejecta being heated by the shock wave, and if this runs into the companion star it can be reheated, adding to the luminosity."

By examining how SN 2011fe's brightness evolved  its so-called early-time light curve  and the features of its early-time spectra, members of the PTF team were able to constrain how big the exploding star was, when it exploded, what might have happened during the explosion, and what kind of binary star system was involved.

The first observations of SN 2011fe were carried out at the Liverpool Telescope at La Palma in the Canary Islands, followed within hours by the Shane Telescope at Lick Observatory in California and the Keck I Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. These were shortly followed by NASA's orbiting Swift Observatory.

This is the Pinwheel Galaxy before (left) and after (right) the supernova called SN2011fe happened. It's the brightest and closest stellar explosion seen in 25 years. Credit: BJ Fulton (Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope)/Palomar Transient Factory/Space Telescope Science Institute

Says Nugent, "We made an absurdly conservative assumption that the earliest luminosity was due entirely to the explosion itself and would increase over time in proportion to the size of the expanding fireball, which set an upper limit on the radius of the progenitor."

Daniel Kasen, an assistant professor of astronomy and physics at the University of California at Berkeley and a faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab's Nuclear Science Division, explains that "it only takes a few seconds for the shock wave to tear apart the star, but the debris heated in the explosion will continue to glow for several hours. The bigger the star, the brighter this afterglow. Because we caught this supernova so early, and with such sensitive observations, we were able to directly constrain the size of the progenitor."

"Sure enough, it could only have been a white dwarf," says Nugent. "The spectra gave us the carbon and oxygen, so we knew we had the first direct evidence that a Type Ia supernova does indeed start with a carbon-oxygen white dwarf."

The expected and the unexpected

"The early-time light curve also constrained the radius of the binary system," says Nugent, "so we got rid of a whole bunch of models," ranging from old red giant stars to other white dwarfs in a so-called "double-degenerate" system.

Kasen explains that "if there was a giant companion star orbiting nearby, we should have seen some fireworks when the debris from the supernova crashed into it." A red giant would have made the supernova brighter by several orders of magnitude early on. "Because we didn't observe any bright flashes like that, we determined that the companion star could not have been much bigger than our sun."

Nor was there much chance the companion was another white dwarf in a double-degenerate system, unless it had somehow avoided being torn apart and littering the surroundings with debris. A shock wave plowing through that kind of rubble would have produced a burst of early light the observers couldn't have missed. So unless the companion was positioned almost exactly between the exploding star and the observers on Earth, closer to it than a 10th the diameter of our sun  an unlikely set of circumstances  the white dwarf's companion had to be a main-sequence star.

While these observations pointed to a "normal" SN Ia, the way the white dwarf exploded held surprises. Typical of what would be expected, early spectra obtained by the Lick three-meter telescope showed many intermediate-mass elements spewing out of the expanding fireball, including ionized oxygen, magnesium, silicon, calcium, and iron, traveling 16,000 kilometers a second  more than five percent of the speed of light. Yet some oxygen was traveling much faster, at over 20,000 kilometers a second.

"The high-velocity oxygen shows that the oxygen wasn't evenly distributed when the white dwarf blew up," Nugent says, "indicating unusual clumpiness in the way it was dispersed." But more interesting, he says, is that "whatever the mechanism of the explosion, it showed a tremendous amount of mixing, with some radioactive nickel mixed all the way to the photosphere. So the brightness followed the expanding surface almost exactly. This is not something any of us would have expected."

PTF team member Mark Sullivan of the University of Oxford says, "Understanding how these giant explosions create and mix materials is important because supernovae are where we get most of the elements that make up the Earth and even our own bodies  for instance, these supernovae are a major source of iron in the universe. So we are all made of bits of exploding stars."

"It is rare that you have eureka moments in science, but it happened four times on this supernova," says Andy Howell, coleader of PTF's SN Ia team: "The super-early discovery; the crazy first spectrum; when we figured out it had to be a white dwarf; and then, the Holy Grail, when we figured out details of the second star."

Howell adds, "We're like Captain Ahab except our white whale is a white dwarf. We're obsessed with proving they cause supernovae, but the evidence has been eluding us for decades." This time, he says, "We got our whale and we lived."

"This first close SN Ia in the era of modern instrumentation will undoubtedly become the best-studied thermonuclear supernova in history," the PTF team notes in their Nature paper, and "will form the new foundation upon which our knowledge of more distant Type Ia supernovae is built."

Two decades after the Berkeley-Lab-based Supernova Cosmology Project, led by 2011 Nobel Prize-winner in Physics Saul Perlmutter, proved that Type Ia supernovae could be used to measure the expansion history of the universe, Berkeley Lab astrophysicists and computer scientists have finally gotten a close-up look at what these remarkable cosmic mileposts really look like.

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User comments : 177

I still don't see how astrophysicists can say they know a darn thing about the universe. If the universe is expanding from a centerpoint and we can still see this center point or big bang then at some point we must have been moving away from it faster than the speed of light and have since slowed down or something.

But how can this be that we see it at all, if we were travelling away from it at the speed of light or faster then slowed all the radiation coming from that big bang source would wind up all crunched up and be like a giant bright spot in the sky visible to the naked eye.

It really makes you wonder what it will look like in a million or a billion years. Good thing time travel into the future is incredibly easy. All you need to do is create an artificial source of gravity or travel near a large enough mass to slow down your own relative time and when you come back to earth it will be the future.

But how can this be that we see it at all, if we were travelling away from it at the speed of light or faster then slowed all the radiation coming from that big bang source would wind up all crunched up and be like a giant bright spot in the sky visible to the naked eye.

Ironically cave man is off, but also to a degree, answering his own questions.

In some ways, the expansion of the universe would be geometric, and in other ways they would not be. It's not like looking at a balloon as it's being blown up: It's like being IN the balloon as it's being blown up. You'll notice the skin of the balloon is stretched and grows bigger and the color less dense. That's like the CMB.

And then your postulate that the expansion of space would have to speed up and then slow down...You just described the most supported part of inflation theory.

I believe that they are probably off on a lot of things, but you don't learn by sitting on your hands...

You n00b, the universe isn't expanding from a central point. The big bang wasn't "an explosion in space." It was an explosion of space and time itself.

This is not what all those Astronomers standing outside the Griffith Observatory in those "Universe" documentaries on the History & Science channels keep telling us. They are adamant that it was a big bang of an explosion. If they didn't want us to believe there was an explosion then they could just simply say it. So far, I've never heard a single one of them say the "big bang" was not an explosion, and an explosion is what they lead off with in all their animated video presentations.

So, who are the "experts" here? Unidentified critics? Or those willing to stamp their facial & name recognition onto their hypothesis?

because the anti-matter simply went in the opposite direction from the matter, and is beyond the light horizon now.

It would mean, all black holes contain a high portion of antimatter, which makes problem for the theory of their formation with accretion of normal matter stars - at the certain moment whole the matter of collapsar should suddenly change into antimatter.

It has problem with the fact, the more distant Universe doesn't appear more dense in general (the relative distances between galaxies are the same) and these distant galaxies even appear expanding instead of collapsing. http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.4956 It rather supports dispersive origin of Hubble red shift, because the shapes of more distant objects appear fuzzy, blurred and larger in size, when being observed through dispersive environment.

You n00b, the universe isn't expanding from a central point. The big bang wasn't "an explosion in space." It was an explosion of space and time itself.

This is not what all those Astronomers standing outside the Griffith Observatory in those "Universe" documentaries on the History & Science channels keep telling us. They are adamant that it was a big bang of an explosion. If they didn't want us to believe there was an explosion then they could just simply say it. So far, I've never heard a single one of them say the "big bang" was not an explosion, and an explosion is what they lead off with in all their animated video presentations.

So, who are the "experts" here? Unidentified critics? Or those willing to stamp their facial & name recognition onto their hypothesis?

bs, i watch those shows and have seen plenty of them explain inflation.

Maybe we don't find anti-matter, because the anti-matter simply went in the opposite direction from the matter

Which direction would that be?

They are adamant that it was a big bang of an explosion. If they didn't want us to believe there was an explosion then they could just simply say it. So far, I've never heard a single one of them say the "big bang" was not an explosion, and an explosion is what they lead off with in all their animated video presentations.

That's the problem when complex topics are poorly communicated to laypeople. Go read a scientific reference, not pop-sci descriptions.

This is not what all those Astronomers standing outside the Griffith Observatory in those "Universe" documentaries on the History & Science channels keep telling us. They are adamant that it was a big bang of an explosion. If they didn't want us to believe there was an explosion then they could just simply say it. So far, I've never heard a single one of them say the "big bang" was not an explosion, and an explosion is what they lead off with in all their animated video presentations.

So, who are the "experts" here? Unidentified critics? Or those willing to stamp their facial & name recognition onto their hypothesis?

bs, i watch those shows and have seen plenty of them explain inflation.

I too have heard them make very brief mention of "inflation", but always (and I mean always) preceded by the explosion of the "big bang".

Now, most of the matter went in the positive direction, and most of the anti-matter went in the negative direction. Problem solved.

all black holes contain a high portion of antimatter, which makes problem...,etc

Wouldn't matter, because only thing you can "know" about a black hole from teh outside is mass, charge, and angular momentum.

Whether or not it's made of anti-matter won't change anything, because any explosion or anything like that below the event horizon could never produce enough energy to get anything back out of there...

If an anti-matter black hole collided with a matter black hole, assuming you could even differentiate the two, it would just make another bigger black hole. The energy wouldn't escape.

"But how can this be that we see it at all, if we were travelling away from it at the speed of light or faster then slowed all the radiation coming from that big bang source would wind up all crunched up and be like a giant bright spot in the sky visible to the naked eye." - Cave Man

You are foncused because you are still inside the point from which the universe originated. You have never left your location, and neither have far away galaxies. They are now in roughly the same place they were at the beginning. the difference is that more space has been added between you and they.

It's hard to articulate complex topics in only 1000 characters, I get caught up in trying to explain and end up looking like an idiot because I omit important ideas or dont re-read my ideas before submitting them.

I understand what the expanding universe theory is all about and im familiar with most einstienian logic. But I have numerous quandries and qalms regarding the way science is pursued, and lately how it seems to be getting so abstract that you need to think in math in order to comprehend the ideas.

One problem with the way space and time are measured is that any defined point has no value or possible use without being relative to another arguably arbitrary point. This has always occurred to me when considering life and death as well, how can there be something and then nothing, or is that just the dichotomy which is self-referential enough to give meaning to itself and create a thing from nothing.

I mean come on, I'm not overly religious but going from a single cell (with a 3-4 billion year lineage), to a trillion cells, maturing from a baby to an adult and then the contrast of dying seems like some huge thing.

One thing I always wondered is that if light is going the speed of light (lol) then does time pass from the photons point of view? You think it would have to or it wouldn't be able to move so maybe a better way to see spacetime is as the heartbeat of the universe, the only way to "see" it is by examining the energy content of a particular area. Photons are light weight and move in a wave, protons are heavy and move much slower.

Also are we made of light? Like under certain circumstances (thermonuclear fusion anyone?) would we, our bodies that is, convert to pure light? Pretty epic, I'd travel into a type 1a if I had lived a few billion years. Coolest death ever! Besides maybe traveling backwards in time to the big bang and being blown to bits by it.

Nice to remember that the photons from this supernova had already been travelling to Earth for 20.9 million years when the recently evolved H. sapiens were wandering around in a probable state of utter bewilderment.

During the last 100,000 years of it's journey the photons must have been wondering if it was worth the effort. However just in the nick of time we drag ourselves out of our mythology, get up to speed with the quantum nature of the Universe, and greet the photons with a glass of champagne. The journey was not in vain, neither theirs nor ours.

"But how can this be that we see it at all, if we were travelling away from it at the speed of light or faster then slowed all the radiation coming from that big bang source would wind up all crunched up and be like a giant bright spot in the sky visible to the naked eye." - Cave Man

You are foncused because you are still inside the point from which the universe originated. You have never left your location, and neither have far away galaxies. They are now in roughly the same place they were at the beginning. the difference is that more space has been added between you and they.

@VD Is this "Inflation" without a "big bang"? Or a "singularity"? Sounds like you're suggesting everything just sort of showed up in the present form at a single instant in time.

Why is the Big Bang always depicted in the popular media as an explosion? How else would they show it? An expansion of space/time cannot be depicted within space/time, only observed on the actual scale.

Something from nothing is clearly demonstrated by the Casimir effect. Also, light has recently been generated from the vacuum. http://www.physor...uum.html

Maybe we don't find anti-matter, because the anti-matter simply went in the opposite direction from the matter

Which direction would that be?

They are adamant that it was a big bang of an explosion. If they didn't want us to believe there was an explosion then they could just simply say it. So far, I've never heard a single one of them say the "big bang" was not an explosion, and an explosion is what they lead off with in all their animated video presentations.

That's the problem when complex topics are poorly communicated to laypeople. Go read a scientific reference, not pop-sci descriptions.

Something from nothing is clearly demonstrated by the Casimir effect. Also, light has recently been generated from the vacuum. http://www.physor...uum.html

A reflected image of something does not mean that two now exist, one is real, the other is intangible. If I hold a million dollar bill in my hand, then go look at myself in a mirror holding that bill, do I now have 2 million?

I knew about this site, but went there anyway. Guess what I found? Every topic on the link you provided discussed the "big bang" as I've been pointing out is being presented on the animated videos.

Is that so - every topic? You must have missed the link where it says:

"The Big Bang has NO center. It is NOT an explosion radiating from a point. In an explosion you get an expanding spherical shell of fragments...This shell has both an outer and an inner edge, and these can be used to locate the position of the explosion. BUT in the Big Bang there is NO edge. You might think that by backtracking the velocity vectors you can locate the center of the Big Bang but this is NOT the case! There is NO center because ALL positions in the Universe are EQUIVALENT. The Universe is homogeneous, which is part of the cosmological principle."

Something from nothing is clearly demonstrated by the Casimir effect. Also, light has recently been generated from the vacuum. http://www.physor...uum.html

A reflected image of something does not mean that two now exist, one is real, the other is intangible. If I hold a million dollar bill in my hand, then go look at myself in a mirror holding that bill, do I now have 2 million?

You really do need to be less superficial in your skimming of scientific articles if you truly wish to learn about the underlying principles.

I'm not sure what your motivation is - it appears that you wish to learn about things and yet you seem to be petulantly rejecting good information that is offered to you by many respondents in this thread. Strange.

Something from nothing is clearly demonstrated by the Casimir effect. Also, light has recently been generated from the vacuum. http://www.physor...uum.html

A reflected image of something does not mean that two now exist, one is real, the other is intangible. If I hold a million dollar bill in my hand, then go look at myself in a mirror holding that bill, do I now have 2 million?

You really do need to be less superficial in your skimming of scientific articles if you truly wish to learn about the underlying principles.

I'm not sure what your motivation is - it appears that you wish to learn about things and yet you seem to be petulantly rejecting good information that is offered to you by many respondents in this thread. Strange.

The real problem here is that so many theorists here do not understand "perpetual motion machines", as an engineer, I do. Something from nothing is classic "pmm".

So keep going and stop when you finish, use a text editor, not the physorg box. THEN break it up into sets of 1000 or less. Don't worry about it fitting until after all the ideas are down. Read and clean. Run a spell check. Try and find the bleeding missing words. All of that before you break into sections. If a section is close to 1000 maybe you can edit part out now that you have ALL the important stuff.

and lately how it seems to be getting so abstract that you need to think in math in order to comprehend the ideas.

That isn't the way works. The math is for checking that the ideas work. I know what Feynman said about doing the math. He still understood most of what was going on, unless of course he was wrong like Dr. Prins thinks. While I find Dr. Prins ideas interesting I am pretty darn sure he is wrong a lot. Like quarks for instance. It makes more sense to me with them than without.>>

I'm not overly religious but going from a single cell (with a 3-4 billion year lineage), to a trillion cells, maturing from a baby to an adult and then the contrast of dying seems like some huge thing.

There are billions and billions of those things even if you only count humans. Are you really going to stumble over such simple numbers. 1,000,000 add 3 more zeds and you have a billion. A billion years is a long time but it is still simple number. Not even close to Google.

One thing I always wondered is that if light is going the speed of light (lol) then does time pass from the photons point of view?

No. I suppose it must do so when not in a vacuum.

You think it would have to or it wouldn't be able to move

Another way to look at it is space/time is a ratio. More space/Less Time. Until light interacts with something besides space it does not experience time.>>

"The Big Bang has NO center. It is NOT an explosion radiating from a point. In an explosion you get an expanding spherical shell of fragments...This shell has both an outer and an inner edge, and these can be used to locate the position of the explosion. BUT in the Big Bang there is NO edge. You might think that by backtracking the velocity vectors you can locate the center of the Big Bang but this is NOT the case! There is NO center because ALL positions in the Universe are EQUIVALENT. The Universe is homogeneous, which is part of the cosmological principle."

So when are you & your colleagues in the Astro-physcists enclaves going to stop using the term "big bang"? If you are so convinced there was never an "explosion", then stop using "explosive" terminology; "big bang" is "explosive" terminology & it is used everywhere by Astronomers in the Universe series.

Sir Dr. Frederic Hoyle coined the term Big Bang to make fun of the theory that replaced his Steady State theory. Other people took up the name because it was cool and I suspect to annoy Fred for trying to make of fun of them.

And yes I am fully aware the article doesn't mention why Fred did that. Look it up if you don't believe me.

Now would you mind doing something to start learning and stop with the whiny ass posts? Please.

Ignorance is not a mortal sin. It is curable. Whining is just annoying.

To be fair to Fred, (and he deserves that much considering he was denied a Nobel prize for his pioneering work into nuclosynthesis)he denied the term 'Big Bang' as coined by him, was meant to be derogatory. And I have no reason to doubt Hoyle, he was a man of first class integrity.

Photons have no mass of their own thus all the energy goes into the creating the wave

This is just an example. How many times I explained you, the trapping of photon increases the mass of object? Of course photons have mass - they lack the mass only in general relativity, because this theory doesn't recognize/support photon concept as such. It's like explanation of concept of snow to people, who live at sub saharan Africa.

If you take hawking seriously, it's possible for a proton and anti-proton to appear out of nothing, so long as they move in opposite directions....Maybe we don't find anti-matter, because the anti-matter simply went in the opposite direction from the matter, and is beyond the light horizon now.

Note if you treat time on an equal footing with space then the matter and anti-matter particles must go in opposite directions in time also. That's why positrons go in opposite directions in a synchrotron and appear to have opposite charges, as noted by Feynman (idea first postulated by Dirac). So when you talk about present time you're talking about time running in both directions.But that's not why you don't find much anti-matter around. Anti-matter would also have a similar reaction in a gravitational field, in which case anti-matter experiences anti-gravity and so it tries to escape spacetime like bubbles underwater.

One thing I always wondered is that if light is going the speed of light (lol) then does time pass from the photons point of view?

No. Interesting that photons are their own anti-particle. Since anti-particles travel in opposite directions in time as I understand it the only was this could happen is for no time to pass either in the forward or reverse directions.

would we, our bodies that is, convert to pure light?

Yes our final destination after being recycled by the black hole at the center of our galaxy. Actually radiation, not necessarily light.

More like you suddenly let the air out of a tire, like decompression. It could be that spacetime is trapped and squeezed between the inner and outer shells of the images Penrose sees in the CMBR, like the outer shell would be positrons and the inner shell electrons.

Now would you mind doing something to start learning and stop with the whiny ass posts? Please.

Ignorance is not a mortal sin. It is curable. Whining is just annoying.

Ethelred

Judging from the time required to come up with your lengthy postings, you seem to have a lot of time on your hands, so I presume you are retired, and you need to do something to occupy your time, I understand that.

What you do not understand is my world of very high technology engineering, one wrong calculation by one person in our engineering department in the design of our electro-mechanical products can result in a lot of people losing life & limb. So, for this reason, it is a professional habit of mine to call people out for inaccurate & inconsistent use of terminology and attempts to put their words in the mouths of other people, I know you can't understand this because you've never been in my position & are better suited for political commentary than scientific.

...I presume you are retired, and you need to do something to occupy your time.

Your evidence is too weak to make this presumption.

...my world of very high technology engineering, one wrong calculation by one person in our engineering department in the design of our electro-mechanical products can result in a lot of people losing life & limb. ...it is a professional habit of mine to call people out for inaccurate & inconsistent use of terminology and attempts to put their words in the mouths of other people

Interesting choice of words. Are you an engineer in that department? I'm an engineer. Imprecise calculations/conclusions concern me more than poor choices of terminology. Just to be precise, lose the dash in electromechanical.

...you've never been in my position...

You have no evidence to conclude that Ethelred has never been in your position.You complain about imprecise use of terminology, but reach imprecise conclusions with weak or no evidence. Interesting...

It's funny, when ignorants like your are replacing arguments with accusations of ignorance.

Funny that coming from you of all people. Even sillier than if it came from Oliver.

This is just an example. How many times I explained you, the trapping of photon increases the mass of object?

Never. And what does that claim have to do with photons not having mass of their own. They only have the mass of the energy they cary. Period.

Of course photons have mass - they lack the mass only in general relativity,

Or in any other theory, including QM, except maybe yours and since you refuse to make your theory eplicit (I asked just the other day and you ran away instead) there is no telling just what you think on this. Nor does anyone really care what you think on it.

Judging from the time required to come up with your lengthy postings, you seem to have a lot of time on your hands,

I make time. I am here to learn not just comment.

so I presume you are retired

No.

and you need to do something to occupy your time, I understand that.

Clearly you don't understand as I have to work to keep eating.

What you do not understand is my world of very high technology engineering,

You implied in other posts that you were a student. Sorry if I misunderstood.

So, for this reason, it is a professional habit of mine to call people out for inaccurate & inconsistent use of terminology

You have to know the terminology first to do that.

know you can't understand this because you've never been in my position

No you don't have a clue on this. I try to be precise at all times(unless making a joke) and if you look around you will find me trying to pin down what people really mean when they use vague terminology.>>

The Big Bang isn't so much vague as it carries a lot of baggage. You don't seem have gotten the idea that it is a shortcut phrase for a rather complex set ideas that include various theories that overlap and often conflict with each other.

are better suited for political commentary than scientific.

This ain't engineering. And its not like engineers don't use rules of thumb either. When I first started college engineers use slide rules. I used slide rules and I was a chem major.

Different areas of study use different terms. If you want to learn new things you have to deal with the terms used in the new area. If you are going to bitch and moan about them not fitting your definitions you are going to have conflicts because you are the newbie. In this case the term Big Bang is older than you are. You are only going to see the shorthand stuff in TV shows. If you watch enough of them you will find one says one thing and another says something quite different fairly frequently.>>

To give an example of words being used differently in other fields I give you:

Artifact.

Archeology - its a good thing. Find an artifact and learn about the makers.

Computers - a way to generate colors on NTSC monitors without actually generating a color signal. Done by cramming bits together in such a way that the NTSC system produces a color. This is how the Apple][ and the IBM CGA monitors worked.

Biology - A Bad Thing. Artifacts in biology are Things That Did Not Belong and came from the experimenters not keeping their own personal chemistry or perhaps lunch out of the experiments.

New field means learning new terms with new rules. And you don't get to make the rules unless you carry the weight of people like Dr. Hoyle did. And physicists often have an odd sense of humor.>>

Nope, you just don't know, what the spam filter is. It means the ability to filter out the posts of particular posters at private basis. For other readers the reading of spam would remain opened, until they wouldn't apply their spam filters too. It's very democratic functionality, which is probably why it wasn't enabled at any forum yet.

.....an appropriate setting that keeps your "sliderule" inside the walls of the retirement community in which you presently reside...nothing like telling on yourself as well as one of your other login handles......

[quote]The Casimir effect demonstrates force between (already existing) objects, not the formation of matter from nothing.[/quote]

That's what I said, 'something from something', 'force' is something, it's er... force, and matter, is something too. Everything is something. Ergo there is not such a thing as nothing. It's just crackpot Buddhist philosophy.

Without massive objects you cannot have Casimir force between them, the causality arrow is clear here (even the existence of these objects is not sufficient condition, you should have them in proximity). By Mach hypothesis even the existence of gravity requires the presence of massive objects in the Universe and I presume the same about dark matter.

callipo, what is your point. My point is simply that there is no such thing as nothing. Even if, for example, there was no casimir effect, even if there were no such thing as virtual particles, even if there was such a thing as completely empty space, nothing at all in the space, even the cursed Buddhist 'nothingness' was all that existed in this little pocket of empty space, still there would be the space itself, which is 'something'.

That should cover it. Ergo there is not such a thing as nothing. It's just crackpot Buddhist philosophy. Nothing is where the U came from. Else there must be something else besides the U in which case the U isn't really complete and therefore technically not a U. That crackpot philosophy might be pretty hard to break.

It seems to me that the big bang is either poorly understood by scientists or poorly defined. If one cannot explain a theory clearly then perhaps the theory is flawed. Furthermore: what caused the singularity? To say it is uncaused, violates one of the strongest principles of logic. Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence, but the evidence for the big bang is quite indirect.

To say it is uncaused, violates one of the strongest principles of logic.

No. Causation (and logic) rely on an implicitly defined arrow of time. At the big bang event such an arrow of time is not defined (time - and space - do not exist independently of the universe we live in). Hence you cannot apply the concept of causation to such an event.

The flaw is not in the logic. The flaw is to assume that logic (and causation) hold without any prerequisites.

Only from perspective of 4D relativity theory. The higher dimensional theories are handling 4D singularity rather smoothly in higher number of dimensions (dense aether theory, ekpyrotic model based on brane cosmology). Such a theories can describe the interior of black holes beneath event horizon too. If during initial singularity the time arrow wouldn't really exist, then the Universe would never evolve into its current state. For everyone is clear, when the black hole collapses into "singularity", something can still exist beneath the event horizon.

Causation (and logic) rely on an implicitly defined arrow of time. time - and space - do not exist independently of the universe we live in

How do you know for sure that time cannot exist outside our universe? This seems like an assumption without basis. Perhaps some for of time does exist ouside our observeable universe.

Second, cause and effect could be simultaneous, like a weight suspended on a chain. The chain causes the weight to remain suspended. Furthermore we cannot exclude that timeless causation is possible. I see no logical argument against timeless dependencies between entities.

Lastly, how could time come in existence fully uncaused? Why would time begin to exist at all? It defies all logic that a theory would not have an explanation for that. The singularity would then be an event very close to a form of magic or metaphysics.

The gravity violates radiative time arrow of relativity quite apparently from this perspective. When massive object collapses into "singularity", from perspective of general relativity theory it's interior doesn't exist anymore in the same way, like the Universe before Big Bang. But its gravity or even charge remains unchanged. You can deduce the superluminal gravity speed from this insight easily. Apparently, even if the Universe wouldn't exist before singularity, its gravity and charge/spin would still manifest itself in unattenuated way (...does the charge spread in superluminal speed too?). From this reason the Newton could be quite right, when he speculated, gravity is manifestation of God, because it should really survive even the formation of Universe in general relativity sense.

You can deduce the superluminal gravity speed from this insight easily.

No. Since nothing changes outside the event horizon that can NOT be deduced from that.

I have yet to see anyone show evidence or a good reason for thinking gravity propagates at superluminal speeds.

From this reason the Newton could be quite right, when he speculated, gravity is manifestation of God,

Newton also thought he was specially chosen to determine how Jehovah made the Universe work. He got it wrong, brilliant work that fit the evidence available, however he clearly wasn't inspired in any way that caused him to outdo the evidence available. I see no reason to agree with him on that.

Since the demonstration of spacetime we know that time isn't independent of space (and that there are instances where time isn't even applicable - e.g. from the point of view of a photon no time passes). Space and time are relative. This means that you need at least 2 points (events) in spacetime to meaningfully define what it is. So it cannot be independent of the universe.

If we postulate that the universe did start from a big bang whence spacetime expanded fom then the notion of what we call time makes no sense outside this context.

This leaves aside the question whether there are other dimensions and whether our universe is embedded in a greater dimensional conglomerate (e.g. brane theory). But that just shifts the issue to a higher order - not eliminating it.I.e. even that wouldn't show that dimensions can exist independent of stuff in them.

The observation of galaxy older than the observable Universe would be sufficient.

But that just shifts the issue to a higher order - not eliminating it.

We are talking about observable Universe here all the time. Outside of Universe as such cannot exist anything even in dense aether theory, simply because in this model the Universe is infinite random space-time geometry.

No one has expected to find gravity waves with the present equipment so not finding any is not evidence that supports any conclusions.

Try again after they finish the stuff that is supposed to find something. The stuff you don't want them to build with money that you have nothing to do with. Could it be that you don't them find anything?

Gravitational waves are deformations of space-time curvature, i.e.

Yes.

they're manifesting like density fluctuations of space.

No. Curvature is not density. Maybe if you would do the math you might prove they are equivalent in your handwave theory. Without the math its just waving and saying it is so. There was no logic there.

and its distance dependence corresponds the longitudinal wave shielding in six dimensions,

It is dependent on the wave length of EM radiation. A small enough gap inhibits the formation of virtual particles by suppressing all but the shortest wavelengths which are the highest energy and therefor the least likely to spawn.

From analogy with underwater wave spreading follows, GWs are way way faster, then the light waves

Only there is no evidence that.

So GWs are violating causality of information

Which makes it highly unlikely that they exist.

and they're inherently chaotic

Its your theory but that still was a handwave not supported by anything you said.

Gravitons manifest itself in the same way, like the gravitational waves, i.e. with CMBR noise. Gravitons bosons aren't distinguishable from fermions with compare to all other particles. The evidence for CMBR noise is overwhelming.

You apparently didn't understand, that the mainstream physics didn't recognize its own concepts in the observable reality. To bring the theory for some artefact is one thing, to recognize you're sitting on it is another one.

For example, Big Bang theory is assuming, the gamma rays formed during Big Bang event expanded into CMBR noise during inflation. OK, but what happened with gravitations waves? They collapsed instead into the very same CMBR photons.

As Eddington pointed out already before many years, gravitational waves do not have a unique speed of propagation. The speed of the alleged waves is coordinate dependent. A different set of coordinates yields a different speed of propagation and such waves would propagate like noise.

The same result can be imagined easily with water surface model, where transverse waves are serving like analogy of waves of light and the gravitational waves are behaving like longitudinal sound waves, which are spreading through underwater. Because sound waves are spreading a way faster, then the surface waves, they would manifest like noise at the water surface.

Being tachyons, gravitational waves are expected to be primarily responsible for entanglement and "action at distance" phenomena of quantum mechanics.

Did you achieve escape velocity with that high frequency handwaving? Action at a distance has yet to be proved. Tachyons are wild assed speculation with zero evidence and you concept of gravity waves is also based on well nothing but handwaving.

Highly dimensional character of gravity interaction is the main reason, the intensity of gravitational waves decreases a much faster with distance, being dispersed by membranes of quantum foam, because they're spreading across quantum foam bubbles in longitudinal waves.

Wonderfully without evidence, logic or reason of any kind that is pure word wuze.

The three dimensional character of gravity makes it decrease in a standard inverse square law. Its pure geometry. Highly dimensional is yet another meaningless noise.>>

This effectively means, gravitational waves are of dispersive character, so they cannot be observed at distance even et the case of quite energetic events, like at the case of black hole and pulsar merging.

It isn't magnetic so magnetic events are irrelevant. Nor is there any reason yet for thinking they cannot be detected. Yes it is clear why you don't want the new detectors built. They could make that page even sillier.

Note that holographic projection at Universe scale requires superluminal speed of GWs for to be able to work at all,

It doesn't work at all. The holographic universe is pure nonsense as it has non-local causality in every way imaginable even WITH superluminal communication. It also is contradictory to your claims of higher dimensions since is a lower dimensional theory. Really strange to try to conflate the two ideas.

No wonder you have never published the 'predicates logics' that you claim supports you.

There exist more rigorous derivation of superluminal nature of gravitational waves indeed. Relativists use a simplified form of Eistein field equations to calculate various properties of his gravitational field, including Einstein gravitational waves, which are based on the Einstein's pseudo-tensor. This simplified form is called the linearised field equations. They do this because Einstein's field equations are highly non-linear (implicit actually) and impossible to solve analytically. So they use the linearised form, simply assuming that they can do so. However Hermann Weyl proved in 1944 already, that linearisation of the field equations implies the existence of a Einstein's pseudo-tensor that, except for the trivial case of being precisely zero, does not otherwise exist:

Anyway, it follows clearly from dense aether model, that gravitational waves must exist, if we can observe the light waves. Because aether is particle environment and every particle environment supports just two kinds of waves: the transverse waves and the longitudinal waves. We already know, the light waves are transverse waves, so we are missing the longitudinal gravitational waves. In addition, we have CMBR noise and we essentially don't know, what this noise is. We have no usage for it in any mainstream theory. So that the assumption, just the CMBR noise is formed with these gravitational waves should be considered as the very first option. If Eddington would live longer, he would definitely predict the existence of CMBR noise a well before it was be observed.

For example, Big Bang theory is assuming, the gamma rays formed during Big Bang event expanded into CMBR noise during inflation

NO. You really are completely without a clue. The CMB is from the long after inflation. Inflation, if it happened, took place during the first second of the Universe. The CMBR didn't form for many thousands of year when the hydrogen and helium cooled enough that it deionized thus decoupling it from light.

No wonder you make so many silly claims.

OK, but what happened with gravitations waves?

They have yet to be detected and I don't see any reason for them to have anything to do with BB theory in the first place. With or without inflation.

hey collapsed instead into the very same CMBR photons.

No. The CMBR has nothing to do with gamma waves. It is from the decoupling event. How the hell have you been on this site for so long and never learned this?

I understood that you have no evidence and that you contradicted yourself in the midst of massive handwaving

This is the same stance, like the stance of people, who are claiming, the science has no evidence for evolution, because they never observed formation of new distinct species (which is true). Such people are representing 60% of Americans, so I don't expect, I can convince the people like you right here. There exists nothing, which could convince the religious people in real time.

The question therefore rather is, if such evidence can be given for you at all. What would you consider as an acceptable evidence, that the gravitational waves are CMBR noise? If nothing, then it has no meaning to convince you anymore. For me evidence is, no one of mainstream physics has considered this option so far. The simplest final solutions are always coming just at the very end.

This is not argumentation at all, just a religious hand-waving negation. Why I should dispute with it?

I was pointing out that you had no argument and were just waving your hands about and claiming it was true AFTER I dealt with the rest of the crap you have there. You can ignore it all you want. You ignore evidence, logic and math and the actual meaning of the word religion so I don't expect you to deal with anything in any rational manner. I expected more bullshit. You just delivered more in those two replies.>>

There exist more rigorous derivation of superluminal nature of gravitational waves indeed

It would be difficult to have anything less rigorous.

However Hermann Weyl proved in 1944 already, that linearisation of the field equations implies the existence of a Einstein's pseudo-tensor that, except for the trivial case of being precisely zero, does not otherwise exist:

Fine. A short cut that leaves out the details produces an artifact of the shortcut. What does that have to do with the actual physics? Or the speed of gravity?

But I'm sure, if you cannot understand the simple logical arguments,

I am still waiting for you use any logic at all. You skipped right over my pointing out the the Holographic Universe contracts you claim of higher dimensions so why do you want to use it?

Do you understand that link is about a SHORTCUT not the actual physics?>>

The holographic universe is crap due to it fitting with any kind of causality. Unless of course you think we live in the Matrix and then it is still crap because the Matrix is linear and the holographic universe is planar. If you don't understand that statement you don't know how computer memory works.

then the highly derived formal proof can add nothing very much to your understanding of reality.

Do let us know when you have that proof formal, informal or with even a smidgen of logic, much less math. Heck you don't even have the most basic principles defined. You just wing in it in each post.

And speaking of not understanding when are you going to learn about the CMBR? You should be able figure that out from that link in about the time it takes to read it. Its really clear and simple to understand if you know what ionization is and how EM couples with ions and does not couple with neutral atoms.

This is not my problem. You should prove instead, my arguments are logical fallacies. For example, did you understand the Eddington's argument? Yes? Not??

Actually, who cares. It cannot be proven, you have understood it - so it's not important at all in matter of fact discussion. The understanding of arguments of your opponent is solely just your problem. I could say with the same relevance, I don't consider string theory relevant, because I don't see any logic in it. This is apparently very silly stance, not an argument at all.

Instead of it, you should prove by now, this argument is wrong - or you cannot claim, it's not argument at all.

There exists nothing, which could convince the religious people in real time.

The wonders of the hypocritical. You have no evidence and not logic and not math and you have the brass to lie that others are religious when YOU actually are a Christian.

The question therefore rather is, if such evidence can be given for you at all.

Sure. You just have not presented any. And lying that I am religious will not make that non-existent evidence real.

What would you consider as an acceptable evidence, that the gravitational waves are CMBR noise?

Evidence of gravitational waves would be the first step and then you would have show that it disperses in a random manner that produces EM that matches the CMBR. YOU leaning what the CMBR actually is would help YOU learn that isn't from gravity and is directly from EM.>>

For me evidence is, no one of mainstream physics has considered this option so far.

that isn't evidence. That is your, using your own personal definition of religion, its a religious view. That no one is willing to look at an alleged theory with no actual propositions, no logic and no math is not evidence of anything except others are more rational than you.

The simplest final solutions are always coming just at the very end.

And you find your keys in the last place you look. You have no solution. You are just waving your hands and claiming you have one. And lying about you opposition which is why I give a one every time claim real science is just a way to get funding whenever I see you pulling that ludicrous crap. You and Oliver tell the same exact lie.>>

So - until you explain, why the above arguments are wrong, I'll consider everything what are you saying here as an off-topic babbling. You got three arguments in total: this one of Eddington, Herman Weyl and water surface analogy of CMBR noise from dense aether model.

No. That page was evidence since it had no physical evidence of any kind for any of it. The only logic you had was a self contradiction with you trying to use both more than 3 dimensions, which I have no problem with, AND use a purely 2 dimensional theory at the same time. Which is self contradiction.

An analogy based on no evidence and your blatant misunderstanding of the CMBR. Combined with a model that you have yet to define. That model is the ultimate ad hoc. It is whatever you want it to be in any given post.>>

LOL, you cannot argue something just with theory, which considers exactly the opposite without further evidence... 8-) The long standing lack of gravitational wave observations serves as an experimental evidence against this assumption instead. The sensitivity of existing detectors is sufficient for observation of at least some GWs.

I don't see finished math or evidence that separates it from the Standard Model. There IS logic involved it just isn't complete. That you don't see that is your problem.

This is apparently very silly stance, not an argument at all.

So why did you bring it up. I never brought up the String Hypothesis.

Instead of it, you should prove by now, this argument is wrong

What argument? You brought up string theory not me. You can deal with it. You brought up Eddington and it is your problem that his idea does not fit the evidence.

or you cannot claim, it's not argument at all.

I certainly can claim that page had no logic except bad logic and I showed it. All you have done is whine about my pointing that you did not use evidence or logic. You have not supplied any new evidence to show any error on my part.>>

Go ahead. Show how your CMBR idea fits the actual evidence. That is YOUR responsibility. The mainstream physicists have already shown how it fits the standard models which is quite unlike the bogus model with gamma rays and inflation you used.

So - until you explain, why the above arguments are wrong, I'll

I did. Stonewalling won't change that.

I'll consider everything what are you saying here as an off-topic

You are almost always off topic.

You got three arguments in total: this one of Eddington,

Eddington was wrong and I showed it.

Herman Weyl

Again that was about a shortcut not the real physics. Are reading what you are replying to?

and water surface analogy of CMBR noise from dense aether model.

Which is an undefined and therefor non-model based on your ignorance of the what the CMBR really is.

So when you going to read the links or even the posts you are trying to evade with this non discussion?

Trying the link without the leading 'h':ttp://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2010/08/what_is_the_speed_of_gravity.php

and that link really isn't going away till you either deal with it or run or actually wonder of wonder LEARN something.

Lying that I didn't show logical errors in your blog won't change the blog. Ignoring most of my posts to avoid your bad version of the Standard Model of the CMBR won't make the real one go away either.

Since the demonstration of spacetime we know that time isn't independent of space

That may be so for our ability to measure the passing of time, but not for it's ontology. In Einsteins original theory of relativity, time is not a 4th dimension but simply a parameter. Time is very different from space because it cannot be travelled back and forth freely. No-one has ever come to us from the future, and past events cannot be repeated.

This tells us that time is very, very different from space. There is no logical reason why a form of time could not exist as a distinct entity outside our universe.

Since the demonstration of spacetime we know that time isn't independent of space

The dense aether analogy of spacetime with the water surface demonstrates close relation of space and time: the spatial direction is parallel with water surface, the time dimension is just perpendicular to it. But it illustrates clearly, the space-time can exist outside the observable universe region quite comfortably - we just cannot observe it like the remote landscape covered under the fog.http://www.josesa...ples.jpgBut if we would travel inside of observable Universe to its remote areas, we would see new and new areas of space-time opening before us and closing behind us, so that the observable Universe zone would always appear roughly the same all the time during this travel.

Therefore the dependence of time and space doesn't imply, they cannot exist outside of observable Universe in observable way.

Science is not able to tell us what happened before the Planck time. What we are left with is a model that has space and time suddenly appearing out of nothing, caused by nothing. Since neither physical laws nor any for of logic apply at the Planck time, this implies that the universe cannot be caused by any natural phenomenon. The beginning of the universe then, scientifically speaking, does not have an explanation. And that is not only unsatisfactory but also defies logic, since we never observe that things come out of nothing caused by nothing.

(Even quantum events are not an exception to this rule, because they are caused by the already existing vacuum energy field, which exists in space and time.)

An analogy demonstrates nothing. It illustrates at best... Making deductions from an analogy is foolish.

This is just a stance of yours, nevertheless the physicists are doing it often. How many black hole phenomena modeled with fluids, surface ripples, metamaterial foam and whatever else we faced in recent PO articles? Often these analogies are even more implicit and vague, than the my analogies (just compare the modeling of Hawking radiation with optical cable or array of SQUIDs). http://physicswor...ws/39501http://www.scienc...3513.htm

You would dissolve inside of black hole, but if you COULD survive it, then you would perceive as an extension of observable Universe. Because the notion of space and time is effectively property of us, human observers, not the Universe as such. We are defining the appearance and scope of observable Universe, not the Universe as such. For simple observers the Universe appears small and simple, for complex ones big and complex. Universe as such is just random and it doesn't differ from random gas. The whole trick in its complexity is the motion at place for sufficient long time.

since we never observe that things come out of nothing caused by nothing.

Induction can't tell us everything. The same poor reasoning is used by Creationists to try to claim that abiogenesis is impossible though they do use the cheat of claiming that information only comes from intelligence because THEY, not I, have only seen it from intelligence. I see it come from the environment.

they are caused by the already existing vacuum energy field,

No. They are caused by uncertainty. There is no evidence that the vacuum has net energy. If it did the Universe would not be flat, the reason the Universe is flat is that energy produces gravity and gravity has negative energy. The positive energy of matter/energy, whether it is matter or antimatter, is countered by the negative energy of gravity.

Since the principles of math/logic do not need a universe and Universe appears to conform to those principles it is reasonable to assume that the Universe we live in exists simply because it can. Another way to put it is to ask this question.

Why shouldn't it exist?

Virtual particles come from Uncertainty not energy. Since all known principles of the Universe conform to math/logic Uncertainty likely does so and would do so without a Universe. Thus nothing literally cannot exist as it is against the principle of Uncertainty. The change from an undefinable nothing to a definable, but energy = zero, something creates space-time out of the principles of logic/math.

Oh yes. I am still waiting to see the actual definitions of your hypothesis. I have been told by others that they don't exist. Surely you can't be winging it every time despite the way it looks. You must have them written down somewhere.>>

Or is really so ridiculous that you don't want anyone to see the basic concepts. On this site it looks like all you have is that water surface analogy that isn't based on any evidence. There is nothing inherently wrong with that IF it can be used to produce a logical system that can produce numbers that fit the evidence. So far you have not numbers and what little logic you have is neither complete nor always valid as in the dimensionality self contradiction you have on that page.

Gravitational lensing is proof photons have mass. Photons simply have no "rest mass". Something that has no mass cannot have its' trajectory altered.

Photons simply have no "rest mass" because they can exist in only one state, at the speed of light. As soon as energy is transformed to mass, & the photon becomes "mass", it can then be equated to "rest mass". (I don't have all the hours in a day to spend to devote time looking up links & cherry picking arguments as some respondents here, I just remember what I learned in my college physics & thermodynamics courses).

Gravity on the other hand is not governed by light speed & is not a form of electro-magnetism. If it were, black holes could not exist because the evidence is that gravity only prevents the escape of electro-magnetic waves from the surface of a black hole but obviously not gravity.

Earth's orbit does not follow the 8.3 light minute "retardation image" of the sun, it follows an arc of 8.3 light minutes beyond that.

it looks like all you have is that water surface analogy that isn't based on any evidence

I'm using the water surface analogy widely for explanation of many phenomena and connections, so it's apparent, it has both many evidences, both many applications. There are evidences for superluminal gravity waves too. The first point is, we still didn't observe these luminal ones - but we are observing the CMBR noise from 1964. At second, the superluminal model brings many predictions, which are testable easily. For example, from this model follows, the remote events will manifest itself not with gravitational waves, but with less or more sudden changes of CMBR intensity comming from all directions at the same moment. I.e. in similar way like the underwater sound waves from nuclear explosions manifest itself at the water surface. These waves don't form ripples, but a noise at the water surface.

It's just equivalent to my above arguments about gravity from beneath of event horizon, which I presented above to Ethelread - but because you're negativistic toward me, you're refuse to admit them just from me.

Only proves that gravity (or gravitons) don't interact with each other.

If they wouldn't, then the gravity field wouldn't keep its shape. They indeed do interact mutually, just in extra dimensions and as such with superluminal speed. One example of such interactions is just the kick of black holes, which manifest itself during their merging.

One simple example, how to deduce the superluminal speed is the thought experiment with light around black hole. We know, the light undergoes the gravitational lensing during which the light waves are moving in slower speed around black hole. It spreads with effective speed in the order of milimeter per year around black horizon. Now we can ask, how the normal speed of light at free cosmic space would appear for objects, which are moving around black horizon. It will indeed appear a much higher, than the speed of light at the event horizon.

Photons simply have no "rest mass" because they can exist in only one state, at the speed of light.

This is correct only in context of general relativity, which actually doesn't recognize any other artifacts of light, than just harmonic waves. The photons are solitons of light waves, i.e. hyperdimensional artifacts of quantum mechanics and general relativity can say absolutely nothing about their existence, their speed the less. But as we know, the solitons of transverse waves are usually move slower, than these waves (photons), the solitons of longitudinal waves are usually moving faster (neutrinos).

Such conceptual thinking is indeed very difficult for formally thinking theorists, who are using to combine equations from various mutually inconsistent theories blindly. I'd fire all these people with no mercy, because they're spending their productive lives just with generation of useless BS.

The only wavelength, for which the general relativity theory produces the same results like the quantum mechanics is the wavelength of CMBR radiation. For this chaotic noise the solitons of waves are equal just these waves, i.e. the photons of CMBR are equal to neutrinos and gravitons at the same moment. For all other wavelengths the quantum mechanics generates different predictions, than the general relativity and their equations cannot be combined freely, if you don't know exactly, what are you actually doing.

I only pointed out that the path of Earth's orbit does not follow the "retarded" 8.3 light speed image of the sun, it follows the actual position of the sun. Orbital satellite data since about 1999 proves this to be the case.

Why not, but you're expected not to answer it, after then. When you're replying to posts, which you don't actually read, you're just introducing the noise into discussion. The ignorance of AWT with mainstream physics proponents has the same origin, like the ignorance of cold fusion and it will have the very same consequences for them.

I only pointed out that the path of Earth's orbit does not follow the "retarded" 8.3 light speed image of the sun, it follows the actual position of the sun. Orbital satellite data since about 1999 proves this to be the case.

But do you have source for it? In this article the precession of perihelion of Earth and Venus corresponds the relativity.

If the gravitational force between the Sun and the Earth were abberated then gravitational forces tangent to the earth's orbit would result, causing the Earth to spiral away from the Sun, due to conservation of angular momentum. Apparently the dual mechanism prohibits the fall of electron into atom nuclei. Current astronomical observations estimate the phase speed of gravity to be greater than 2.10E 10 than the speed of light.

BTW What the CMBR isotropy has to do with it? We are talking about temporal changes at the case of gravitational waves?

Which is due to the end of the period of ionization not gravity waves.

This is just a tautology, as the age of the period of ionization is extrapolated just from frequency of CMBR noise. Again, you cannot argue some explanation with theory, which is just assuming it as a postulate. The proponents of mainstream physics are living in tautologies.

Photons have no meaning in GR as well. The existence of quanta follows from quantum mechanics, not the GR, which hasn't been quantized in unambiguous way yet (and it will never be). As I've said already, the GR deals just with harmonic waves and it doesn't recognize the pressure of radiation and the QM deals just with particle wave packets and it doesn't recognize gravity field at all. There two theories have nothing in common in strictly deterministic sense. They lead into predictions, which differ in 130 orders of magnitude.

It has no deterministic evidence, because it cannot have it. At the moment when you try to prove it with using of pair of theories, which lead into different predictions for single phenomena, then you're facing huge anthropic landscape of solutions, i.e. the noise. It's mathematically impossible. Analogously, all deterministic evidences of superluminal gravity will be inconclusive and when they will be conclusive, they cannot be deterministic (at least not in the sense of radiative time arrow).

BTW What the CMBR isotropy has to do with it? We are talking about temporal changes at the case of gravitational waves?

No.You are doing that in regards to the CMBR which you claim is from the so far undetected gravity waves. Which is not the case. Do read the link. It is about time you leaned what the CMBR is since insist on bringing it up.

This is just a tautology, as the age of the period of ionization is extrapolated just from frequency of CMBR noise.

Read the bloody link. It is inherent in the BB theory even if you use a Brane theory version. I said nothing about the time just that it is the source of the CMBR.

Again, you cannot argue some explanation with theory, which is just assuming it as a postulate.

YOU are the king tautology and handwaving. Hypocrisy thy name is Zephir. Well it isn't your name anymore than mine is Ethelred EXCEPT I have only used the one handle online.

At first, don't link lengthy articles instead of argumentation with easy to follow logics. Don't argue with logics when the link to facts is required.

At second - I read it. What's next? This article is irrelevant to gravitational waves, so you cannot use it as an evidence, the CMBR is not formed with gravitational waves.

YOU are the king tautology and handwaving. Hypocrisy thy name is Zephir.

Yawn, just another boring name calling and no arguments. BB theory is tautological because it uses the (wavelenght of) CMBR noise for reasoning of (the age of) Big Bang and subsequently it uses the (age of) Big Bang for explanation of (the wavelength of) CMBR noise. This is what a tautology is called.

I didn't say it either! I only said that satellite data since about 1999 records the fact that the path of Earth's orbit follows a path 8.3 light minutes ahead of the visible image of the sun.

Maybe Oliver, with his connections to the Apollo project, can dig up the satellite data for us then Mr. Sliderule can interpret it. (my first lunch hour all week & I spend it reclaiming science from the "old folks home).

When massive object collapses into "singularity"...its gravity and charge/spin would still manifest itself in unattenuated way

meaning its spin would have to be infinite if its mass was concentrated in a singularity in order to preserve angular momentum when it collapsed.When black holes accrete matter it would have to travel from the event horizon to the singularity. I don't think during this time it would just go poof and be a singularity, so if black holes accrete matter they must contain more than just a singularity. I think black holes could contain lots of singularities but a lot of other things too.

if black holes accrete matter they must contain more than just a singularity

The interior of such colapsar wouldn't differ from the interior of Universe with many black holes so much, it will be just a bit simpler and more similar to the interior of dense neutron stars. It's foamy structure was conjectured by Kipp Thorne before many years already. The singularities will sit inside the nodes of this foam in similar way, like the galaxies are sitting inside of nodes of dark matter.

They are caused by uncertainty. There is no evidence that the vacuum has net energy

Neither is there any proof that the net amount of energy in the universe is zero. This calculation depends on how the potential energy is defined and initialized.

Uncertainty is not a causal principle, and to say uncertainty causes something constitutes a logical fallacy. Vacuum models make it clear that quantum events are unpredictable, but this does not mean that they are uncaused.

The appearance of virtual particles is described by the famous Heisenberg equation, which presupposes the existence of time and space. Time and space is the same as nothing.

The value of the vacuum energy is not well established. The measurement suffers from renormalization problems and it is certainly not generally accepted to be zero or any specific value for that matter.

The value of the vacuum energy is not well established. The measurement suffers from renormalization problems and it is certainly not generally accepted to be zero or any specific value for that matter.

The general relativity describes the space-time from insintric perspective, i.e. it accounts just to the tiny residual ZPE of vacuum, whereas the quantum mechanics describes space-time from extrinsic perspective: it accounts to the energy density of underwater from the perspective of water surface analogy. These two perspectives actually cannot be reconciled in deterministic way, as you cannot observe the water surface both from inside, both from outside at the same moment. From perspective of AWT the QM value appears more relevant, but the exact value depends on the number of dimensions considered. In three dimensions it's roughly equal the inverse value of third power of Planck constant, i.e. 10E 90 J/ccm.

Earth's orbit does not follow the 8.3 light minute "retardation image" of the sun, it follows an arc of 8.3 light minutes beyond that. - Benni

It follows the curvature of space. This tendency to treat gravity as a force like EM is where people's goes wrong. It is not a force. It is a pseudo force created by the curvature of space-time. - Ethelred

The effect Benni mentions would occur for a EM field as well as a gravitational field, so it's not really a matter of the non-force, curvature of space time, nature of general relativity.

The constant motion of an observer wrt a static field,.. EM or gravitational,.. does not cause the field intself to change, so that 'propagation of the field' does not come into play. There is no time-delay necessary, as the "static [gravitational] fields always point directly to the actual position of the bodies that they are [associated with]".

In dense aether model the gravity arises as a shielding force of waves at many scales at the same moment. The main portion arises from shielding of tachyonic gravitational waves (which are some-times called "scalar" waves in extended electromagnetic theory) and which are considered to spread with superluminal speed in the same way, like the sound waves beneath the water surface. Such waves manifest only with Brownian noise at the water surface and they represent the explanation of CMBR noise in the vacuum. The passage of gravitational waves will correspond the less or more sudden change of CMBR noise intensity from all directions at the same moment. These waves are forming stable solitons (neutrinos) which have character of particles in the same way, like the light waves are forming photons. With compare to photons, which are usually moving with slightly subliminal speed the neutrons are supposed to move with slightly superluminal speed.

The gravitational waves should be possible to generate with electronic circuits too. So-called the Caduceus coil with bifilliar winding should be able to radiate the scalar waves, which can be separated from residual photons with heavy shielding. http://jnaudin.fr...xmtr.htm

Oh and Bennie thinks I use sockpuppets and that I may be Frank Herbert because Zephir lied about that when I pointed out that he used a lot more than the two he is now using. Bennie is my number two suspect. Piroutte is the most likely. Of course Zephir could be responsible as he has done this exact thing past.

Zephir, that's all purest bullshit since you refuse to post the propositions you claim you have or the 'predicates logics' you also claim you have. When asked you just pretend the question never happened.

that's all purest bullshit since you refuse to post the propositions you claim you have or the 'predicates logics'

AWT is based on dense aether model: the inertial Boltzmann gas of infinite density. The observable reality appears composed of nested density fluctuations of it. These density fluctuations enable the propagation of both longitudinal waves, both transverse waves, like any other particle environment. The speed of transverse waves is always much lower, than the speed of longitudinal waves and they're behaving like tachyons. In this moment you can apply the old deDuillier-LeSage theory of gravity, which explains inverse square law for gravitational force with shielding of massive objects with these tachyons.

Why this post? Please see my post in proper context. I'm am correcting Benni's following post that gravity is instantaneous, i.e. does not propagate at c.

Gravity on the other hand is not governed by light speed & is not a form of electro-magnetism. If it were, black holes could not exist because the evidence is that gravity only prevents the escape of electro-magnetic waves from the surface of a black hole but obviously not gravity.... Earth's orbit does not follow the 8.3 light minute "retardation image" of the sun, it follows an arc of 8.3 light minutes beyond that. - Benni

Why this post? Please see my post in proper context. I'm am correcting Benni's following post that gravity is instantaneous, i.e. does not propagate at c.

Gravity on the other hand is not governed by light speed & is not a form of electro-magnetism. If it were, black holes could not exist because the evidence is that gravity only prevents the escape of electro-magnetic waves from the surface of a black hole but obviously not gravity.... Earth's orbit does not follow the 8.3 light minute "retardation image" of the sun, it follows an arc of 8.3 light minutes beyond that. - Benni

This is about the third time someone has claimed I said something that I never said. That above quote does not state anything other than what it says. You're reading in words that are your own.

Zephir, I really expected more. Something that made more sense. I had this idea that you were using a granularity based Aether that took relativity into account and used a foam based model instead of a coordinate based model. That is why I had, several times, said it was more likely, MUCH more likely that you were right than Oliver was. But that LeSage theory of gravity is just so utterly wrong there is no way anything can come out that has any use.

AWT is based on dense aether model: the inertial Boltzmann gas of infinite density.

I see. So it starts of with an impossibility and then goes down from there.

These density fluctuations enable the propagation of both longitudinal waves, both transverse waves, like any other particle environment.

No it doesn't. You started with an impossible density so there is nothing that can propagate anything, it is already maxed out.

The speed of transverse waves is always much lower, than the speed of longitudinal waves

That is an assumption based on water and at infinite density there won't be any waves.

they're behaving like tachyons.

A never seen particle that cannot exist at anything below C in a fantasy of infinite density based on the behavior of waves in water. Well yes behaving like tachyons would fit since there is no sign tachyons existence. and thus no way to tell how they would behave if they did exist. Have you heard about the Giant Invisible Orbiting Aardvark. It behaves exactly like tachyons in that it is undetectable.>>

In this moment you can apply the old deDuillier-LeSage theory of gravity, which explains inverse square law for gravitational force with shielding of massive objects with these tachyons.

Is it clear enough for you?

Yes. Its much worse than I imagined. Duillier-LeSage theory of gravity is just about the worst attempt at explaining gravity that I have ever seen. I read the whole thing. Even in the late 1600s early 1700s that went over really badly.

It is ugly. Worse than QM with MUCH worse dependency on infinities. How the hell could you find anything in that worth using?

Why it's wrong? It can be even extended to dark matter explanation. The principle of shielding has many connection to the projective holographic model. For example, if the projection wouldn't be of tachyonic nature, the holographic model couldn't work at all. It's rather difficult to imagine, how the behaviour of object would be driven with their projection with limited speed of light across whole Universe. It means, even the holographic model requires tachyons to work.

With the "subtle" difference, LeSage model is as physical, as the holographic model is artificial, because the shielding of energy routinely occurs in real life, whereas the nobody did actually see some real object formed with hologram. The formally thinking physicists cannot invent nothing real with their abstract imagination, but they're converging to the same principles like the AWT at least.

Why not? The curvature is not static. It moves with the Earth and Sun which orbit around a common center EXCEPT that it isn't a simple set of equations but an iterative calculation whose accuracy depends on the granularity of the iterations. Assuming they did the hard but more accurate way.

Earth's orbit does not follow the 8.3 light minute "retardation image" of the sun, it follows an arc of 8.3 light minutes beyond that. - Benni

It doesn't do either of those. It follows the curvature of space-time. That curvature is produced by the Sun, the Earth and the rest of the planets but in the case most is by the Sun and the Earth. Careful calculations have shown that the curvature in space controlling orbit of the Earth and Sun around their common center propagates at the speed of light. That was covered in the link I posted above.>>

Duillier-LeSage theory of gravity is just about the worst attempt at explaining gravity

Believe it or not, it's actually the only model, which explains inverse square law. Verlinder recent model uses the projective explanation too, it just works with abstract entropic flux and in general is much more complex. General relativity is out of the game in this context, because it itself uses the inverse square law for its derivation of stress-energy tensor from metric tensor. Gravitational constant in Einstein's field theory comes just from Newton's gravitational law, which considers infinite speed of gravity.

IMO your negativism toward deDuillier-LeSage model comes from the same source, like the negativism of aether model. Whole generations the physicists repeated, aether model has been refused in M-M experiments, so now it's accepted as a religion, which no one is trying to doubt. And LeSage model (which is itself aether model based) shares the same destiny naturally.

I don't pretend that I can do the math, I am taking the astrophysicist's word that the math was calculated properly. If anyone can show otherwise I am willing to change my mind on this. This is not a simple Newtonian equation. It is a horrid mess of Einstein's GR equations and if they did it right it may have been an iterative calculation that could only be done on a supercomputer.

Any form of gravitational shielding would represent a violation of the equivalence principle, and would be inconsistent with the extremely precise null result observed in the Eötvös experiment and its successors all of which have instead confirmed the precise equivalence of active and passive gravitational mass with inertial mass that was predicted by general relativity.

However, in order to reduce the drag to an acceptable level (i.e., consistent with observation) in terms of classical mechanics, the speed v must be many orders of magnitude greater than the speed of light. This makes Le Sage theory fundamentally incompatible with the modern science of mechanics based on special relativity, according to which no particle (or wave) can exceed the speed of light. In addition, even if superluminal particles were possible, the effective temperature of such a flux would be sufficient to incinerate all ordinary matter in a fraction of a second.

As noted in the historical section, a major problem for every Le Sage model is the energy and heat issue. As Maxwell and Poincaré showed, inelastic collisions lead to a vaporization of matter within fractions of a second and the suggested solutions were not convincing.

There is much more there.

The principle of shielding has many connection to the projective holographic model.

Which is also pure crap. It breaks causality completely.

Read your own link. No one thought it a good theory after running the numbers and it looks like crap in the fist place. The only reason anyone ran the numbers is because there was no theory of gravity. We have a theory of gravity that works. That one doesn't have a prayer of matching the real world.

Believe it or not, it's actually the only model, which explains inverse square law.

In AWT virtually every theory can be expressed as a pile of another theories or like another theory extended with huge number of extradimensions. In this way the large condensed system of tiny space-time fluctuations follows the simple Newton's law of gravity and vice-versa: the complex gravity field around massive objects can be described as an integral of Newtonian gravity fields, which are composing it. This principle is completely symmetric. For example, many tiny Maxwell fields lead into gravitomagnetic behaviour of large gravity fields and vice-versa, the simple gravity fields of isolated particles lead into elastic behaviour of Maxwell's fluid.

The trick of AWT is, it just uses the simplest possible version of the duality. So if dense particle gas can be expressed like field of huge number of quantum wave packets and vice-versa, why not to use the simpler model as the introductory one? Both they lead into the same prediction

General relativity is out of the game in this context, because it itself uses the inverse square law for its derivation of stress-energy tensor from metric tensor.

It follows from basic geometry. It was the only MECHANICAL theory that fit the inverse square law. Newton's and Einstein's both fit the inverse square law EXCEPT it is slightly different in Einstein's which is supported by evidence.

Gravitational constant in Einstein's field theory comes just from Newton's gravitational law

That is just one number in around 200 pages and there has SOME number for the gravitational constant. It is based on actual measurements.

Any form of gravitational shielding would represent a violation of the equivalence principle, and would be inconsistent with the extremely precise null result observed

It would be problem if we wouldn't know about dark matter or quantum mechanics. But at the moment, when we know, the dark matter exist and it violates the equivalence principle, the same alleged imperfection suddenly becomes its strongest point, which enables to falsify the relativity theory into account of simpler model.

This makes Le Sage theory fundamentally incompatible with the modern science of mechanics based on special relativity

But it makes it compatible with quantum mechanics, which is just a big problem for every general relativity. Because constant speed of light in vacuum actually doesn't enable any subtle gravitational lensing, the refraction and formation of more dense objects the less. In strictly special relativity sense the space-time must be always empty, non-refracting and flat.

But which geometry? Only the geometry of Le Sage model. The inverse square law of gravity force is apparently based on three-dimensional space in similar way, like the derivation of Casimir force is based on six-dimensional space.

It is NOT aether based.

Of course it is, or you couldn't explain, from where the superluminal waves are coming from. They're apparently correspond the underwater sound waves in water surface model of dense aether theory. Every object floating at this surface is shielding both surface ripples, both underwater sound waves. The resulting attractive forces are different - the first one is responsible for Casimir force and it applies to six-dimensional space, the later is responsible for gravity force and it applies to three-dimensional space.

Ethelred, you seem to be an expert at pulling comments apart out of context. I know that the universe is not static.

It appeared to me that Benni was saying that gravatation can't be limited by the speed of light, because gravitation escapes from the surface of a BH.

Wrt the point made by me, fapp gravitation is static relative the an observer seeing the phenomenon correctly pointed out by Benni, i.e. if gravitation is at c, then orbits would SEEM to follow the gravitational "[non]-retardation image",... but Benni correctly pointed out that IT DOES NOT, instead it follows the actual location of the Sun.

The fouth paragraph at this Wiki page explains the phenomenon, which I presummed Benni was fooled by.

In original de Duillier model the tachyons responsible for shielding of massive bodies were considered as an ultramundanne particles, i.e. the particles coming from different universe. It means, even the old geometers had a notion of parallel Universe or space-time and it's connection to superluminal speeds - we are just reinventing it. The dense aether model was quite widespread in Newton times too, as the Robert Hooke's remark implies: "All space is filled with equally dense material. Gold fills only a small fraction of the space assigned to it, and yet has a big mass. How much greater must be the total mass filling that space." [Hooke, 1687] De Duillier even speculated about foamy structure of space-time based on dense particle packing (Kepler's conjecture). It indicates, these old medieval chaps had quite deep understanding of the neighbouring reality - we are just slowly reinventing their insights again.

That is just one number in around 200 pages and there has SOME number for the gravitational constant. It is based on actual measurements.

Nevertheless its origin still makes trouble for general relativity at the large distance, when the dimensionality of space-time decreases and the inverse square law is not valid anymore - because the inverse square law of surrounding massive bodies gets into account. On the dual insight (violation of Newton's inertial law due the quantum fluctuations) the MOND theory is based. Both these mechanisms break the equivalence principle at large distances.

Well, initially even Maxwell, Lorentz, and Poincare were thinking in terms of the aether,... until Einstein pointed out that is redundant and an obsolete notion.

Einstein replaced the aether concept in one half of physics, the other remained the domain of quantum mechanics. It's like the replacement of water surface model with equations describing the spreading of massive objects from perspective of surface and transverse waves (intrinsic and extrinsic perspective). These two approaches are the most deterministic approaches, which we can choose for description of space-time and the mainstream physics deserves credit for it.

But these four-dimensional approaches are hiding the hyperdimensional indeterministic nature of observable reality completely. At the human distance scale the appearance of Universe apparently doesn't follow neither quantum mechanics, neither general relativity. For example, we can never met with the quantum wave packets or Riemann spheres in real life.

For example, to replace the behaviour of space-time with general relativity has the same effect, like if we would consider the water surface as an infinitely thin elastic membrane, which is not affected with underwater at all. Under such a situation, the (motion of) objects floating on such surface aren't affected with (motion of) underwater, so that Lorentz invariance can be applied here. At the certain distance scale the behaviour of surface ripples roughly follows such an behaviour (so called capillary or Langmuir waves, which are driven with surface tension) - so that the general relativity may be apply to it. But outside of this distance/energy density scale the influence of density fluctuations of light wave environment cannot be neglected anymore. we should realize, the general relativity is valid only for quite limited portion of Universe and this portion is even not defined well.

It is too much of a restriction with respect to scientific progress, to burden it with the requirement of intuitive comprehensibility. It is also, arbitrary, because it is unlikely that Reality conforms to notions applicable at the macroscopic realm, in which humans have evolved.

it is unlikely that Reality conforms to notions applicable at the macroscopic realm, in which humans have evolved.

Actually it's quite likely in anthropocentric model of reality. In this model the reality appears in the way, which we are observing it or we couldn't exist in it at all. The rest of Universe is simply random at both quantum, both cosmological scales. The most complex portion of Universe is enabled for evolution. And the remaining parts are domain of relativity and quantum mechanics theories. These theories aren't actually valid for most extreme distance scales or for the distance scales of common life, but for distance scales which are sitting roughly at the 2/4 and 3/4 of the distance scale range of observable Universe.

There are many indicia for anthropocentric model of reality. For example, we are existing just at the middle of dimensional scale of observable Universe. The scope of Universe, where the intelligent life could survive is very narrow ("fine tuning" problem). The Universe appears like the interior of transparent sphere with solar system at its center and outside of it appears random, whereas every violation of cosmological principle turned wrong in less or more distant perspective. The recent observations indicate, the actual Universe is much larger, than the directly visible portion of it.

Of course, the special relativity is perspective of water surface, in which the spreading of surface ripples is NEVER influenced with underwater. And the quantum mechanics is perspective, in which spreading of surface ripples is ALWAYS affected with water surface. Such a waves are always moving like the solitons, the mass density of which (the dilatation of water surface with deformation of surface) is always proportional to energy density (in blue color) in each time and space interval of this soliton.http://www.aether...wave.gifAt the water surface such perspective correspond the narrow zone at the distance scale between wavelength of Brownian noise and the wavelength of Faraday waves. Bellow this distance scale the surface waves cannot spread anymore in deterministic way, above this scale they're spreading in deterministic capillary waves, which are modelling special relativity.

It appeared to me that Benni was saying that gravatation can't be limited by the speed of light, because gravitation escapes from the surface of a BH.

Wrt the point made by me, fapp gravitation is static relative the an observer seeing the phenomenon correctly pointed out by Benni, i.e. if gravitation is at c, then orbits would SEEM to follow the gravitational "[non]-retardation image",... but Benni correctly pointed out that IT DOES NOT, instead it follows the actual location of the Sun.

The fouth paragraph at this Wiki page explains the phenomenon, which I presummed Benni was fooled by.

Nope, not Wiki. Came out of a discussion I was having with a physicist in the lounge of the ski lodge we both frequent while he was in the States for the Holidays. He works on the math at CERN in Switzerland trying to increase the density of mass to create black holes.